


Our Family Is Unique

by imgoingtocrash



Series: Pepperony Week 2019 [5]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Dancing, Endgame Fix-It, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Graduation, Iron Family, Parent-Teacher Conference, Pepperony Week, Tony and Pepper Loving Their Biological and Adopted Kids, Visiting Nashville, girls night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 05:56:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgoingtocrash/pseuds/imgoingtocrash
Summary: “I’m sorry to have caused you so much trouble, Miss Shaw,” Pepper replies, trying to channel the part of herself that has to deal with the press every day. “I know our family is unique. I don’t even know where to start—“Tony takes care of that for her. “Nebulaisan alien. Well, I guess we’re aliens to her, too, though. Apparently they call us Terrans out there in that big ol’ galaxy of ours.” Tony pulls out his phone and pulls up a picture of Morgan in Nebula’s lap. They’re in the Starks’ yard, holding half-melted juice pops. It was taken at their last barbecue over the summer.“Oh my god,” Miss Shaw says, putting her head in her hands. “Please don’t tell me the tabloid stories about Spider-Man being Mister Stark’s lovechild are true."OR: Peter graduates high school, Nebula experiences Girls Night, Harley takes Tony and Pepper on a tour of Nashville, and Morgan draws an…interestingfamily portrait for art class.





	Our Family Is Unique

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Pepperony Week Day 6! The week is almost over, but the prompts aren’t done yet! As my fill for the “endgame fix-it” prompt, I’m showing off the family—biological and found—that Tony and Pepper have built. It’s a fluffy and kind world that's ignoring Endgame's ending, and I hope you enjoy escaping into it as much as I did.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Daddy, Mommy, look!” Morgan shouts with glee, desperate to be heard over the busy din of post-graduation excitement. Tony panicked for a moment when she ran away from them, weaving between people a little more easily with her short form to get across the room, but they find her exactly where he expected. “Petey let me wear his funny hat!”

As she described, Morgan is sitting in Peter’s arms, haphazardly wearing his graduation cap on her head. The tassel is positioned just over her mouth, and she blows it back and forth as a way of entertaining herself.

“I see,” Tony remarks, taking Morgan from Peter’s arms. “I also see that you ran from us when I explicitly told you not to, squirt.” The remark doesn’t have as much parental heat behind it as he wanted—he’s too happy today, and letting Morgan get away with things because he loves her is a hard habit to break. Pepper doesn’t really fight him on it either, running a hand through Morgan’s hair—a gesture to untangle the fly-aways and assure herself that their daughter is okay at the same time.

“Sorry, Daddy,” Morgan coos, kissing Tony’s cheek. It’s not her most sincere or understanding apology, but he supposes that it’ll have to do. “I _had_ to hug Peter,” she dramatizes in that way that he now knows young kids do. It’s not an excuse, but her genuine belief that she needs something the moment she asks for it or she’ll implode in a burst of childish impatience.

“Well, if we _have_ to…” Tony trails off, smiling at Peter and ignoring the petulant way the kid rolls his eyes, as if embarrassed. He’s now eighteen and leaving high school, but he’s still a little immature. He’ll probably never really be an adult to Tony, and considering all that Peter’s experienced just to get to this point in his life, Tony doesn’t feel too bad about still treating him like a child in some ways. Tony transfers Morgan to Pepper’s arms, then brings Peter in for a hug. “We’re so proud of you.”

“I know,” Peter laughs a little into Tony’s shoulder. “How could I not?” It’s true—Tony and Pepper have been ecstatic about Peter graduating from Midtown. Every conversation with Peter, even while Spider-Man-ing, has been peppered with remarks like, “Be careful, you don’t want to be the kid that has to limp across the auditorium stage,” or “It’s for your senior pictures. Borrow the damn hair gel, kid.”

It’s possible that Peter’s family—biological and extended—have been more excited for this day than Peter himself, and they’ve not been afraid to voice that to anyone that will listen.

“Thanks, Tony,” Peter says, stepping back a little, one of Tony’s arms still around him. He doesn’t say for what, but Tony knows. For bringing him back from the dead. For sticking by him long before that. For adopting him and his aunt into the Stark family, into the makeshift Avengers family.

“Of course, Pete.” Tony kisses the side of Peter’s head, no longer quite able to reach the top of his skull without standing on his toes since Peter’s late little few-inches growth spurt. He moves the action to Morgan next. They’re such great kids, and he’s so damn lucky.

Pepper hands Morgan back to take her own turn, encircling Peter with a hug too. With her heels, Peter’s shorter, and he’s barely over her shoulders like Tony. “You looked so good up on that stage, honey,” Pepper says, smoothing the bird’s nest of his hair now formed by the removal of his hat and the sweat of people all clustered together like this. “I can’t believe you’re gonna be a college student, soon.”

“Future MIT student, right here!” Tony shouts, only attracting a few glances in the cacophony. Morgan cheers along in agreement. She’s almost seven now, so she understands that the graduation is important, even if the ceremony itself mostly bored her when it wasn’t about Peter.

“Where’s Aunt May?” Peter asks, shuffling a few feet back from them both. His cheeks are tinted a little red, but his shyness at the affection is disguised in the heat of the crowded room of other family members taking photos and reconnecting with their graduated kids.

“May headed outside. She wanted to find a nice spot for pictures,” Pepper supplies. It’s hard to find anywhere that isn’t currently filled with other families trying to do the exact same thing, but Tony wished May luck for trying.

“Aunt May said it was my job to come find you,” Morgan supplies, growing more restless in his arms. She’s been stuck sitting in a chair for the past two hours with only Starkphone games as a distraction. “Daddy helped.”

“Don’t worry, Mo, I know you’re the brains behind this whole operation,” Peter faux-whispers, relieving Tony of Morgan so that she can use Peter as her own jungle gym. Soon she’ll be too big for Tony to carry, but with his powers, Peter doesn’t have as much of a problem. She giggles as Peter lets her hang from his arm while he swings her around in a little circle.

Pepper moves back to Tony, her head on his shoulder as they watch the kids play. Peter never had siblings, but his protective and generally excitable nature makes him a wonderful big brother for Morgan. He’d worried about them getting along at first when everyone first came back from the Snap after five years, but a few rounds of Mario Kart was enough to get them started the first day, and since then Morgan has practically begged for Peter to come over to the lake house every single weekend.

“Peter!” yells a voice, and when Tony looks to his left, a small mass of graduates is weaving through the crowd to them. At the helm is Ned, who called out. “The whole AcaDec team is doing a picture and we still have to find MJ, come on!” Ned pauses for a beat, taking in the Stark family. The other students crowding behind Ned seem to take better notice when Ned’s automatic greeting is “Hey, Mister Stark! Hi, Miss Potts!”

Tony nods. “Ned.” Since the Starks are living outside of the city, Peter and Ned don’t spend that much time together around Tony, but he knows that the boys both being dusted and both coming back to a different world helped Peter recover from everything with Thanos, and he’s very thankful that they’ll be sticking together for MIT, too. It will be nice for Peter to have someone that knows about Spider-Man with him, even if college causes them to make new friends or grow apart.

Peter defers to Tony and Pepper for permission, pleading look already in his eye. Tony waves his hand towards Peter’s fellow students. “Go ahead. We’ll be out by the steps when you’re ready. Just don’t take too long, Miss Morgan is very excited to show you the cake we made back at the house.”

“It’s got chocolate _and_ vanilla icing!” she cheers, taking Tony’s hand and sing-songing. “Aaaand sprinkles!”

“I’m sure it’s great, Morgan,” Peter smiles, crouching to be at Morgan’s level. “Can I have my hat back?”

Morgan nods, shaking the tassel on her head around in circles and coming very close to shaking it off of the cheap cardboard cap entirely. Peter lightly tweaks Morgan’s nose in response, flipping the cap onto his head in one smooth movement. The pictures of those two outside with that hat are going to be adorable, he can tell.

“See you guys in a minute!” Peter says, stopping only to allow Tony to adjust the hat over his still-messy hair and make sure the tassel is on the post-graduation side where it belongs before he runs off with the rest of his class.

“Was that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts?” whispers a female voice in Ned’s little group.

“What, no way!” a shorter male says, louder.

“How come you guys still don’t believe me? I post pictures of us together on Instagram all the time. _From their house!_” Peter shouts, raising his arms, making him still visible in the horde of students they’re walking into.

“We thought you were just really good at Photoshop.”

“Oh my god—“

Tony shakes his head. Being a full-time father means less ostentatious suits and more jeans, t-shirts, and polos that he’s not afraid to get ruined, but he knows he’s still a recognizable public figure, just like Pepper. Especially now that people are praising the Avengers for saving half of the population instead of blaming them for losing those people in the first place. Still, Peter’s decathlon friends only noticed when they were up close and Ned called their names. They’ll probably be able to sneak out of here without worrying about a fanatic mob or anything.

Morgan tugs on Tony’s hand. “Aunt May?”

“Yeah, let’s go find May,” Tony agrees, picking up Morgan again so that this time she can’t run away. He holds her close and Pepper seems to share the same look on his face—they’re very, very thankful that they’ve got so many years before their baby girl graduates.

xx

“I do not understand,” Nebula says, sitting at the Starks’ kitchen table. She’s blunt, and Pepper likes that about her. She can understand why Tony enjoyed her so much, even in what he worried were the last moments of his life. Underneath the blue skin and robotic attachments is a woman growing from years of pain, just like the rest of them. Nebula had been busy through most of the five years after the first snap, but she and Tony kept in regular contact, and she’d been around Morgan long enough to have Pepper’s daughter grow on her, just like she has with all of the other Avengers.

“Girls night!” Morgan cheers, sitting on her knees in the chair next to Pepper. Morgan dips a finger into the pool of syrup on her plate, punctuating her statement with a pop as she smacks her lips. Pepper would discourage the behavior of using her fingers, but then Morgan will lick it up with her face like a puppy and ruin her freshly-showered hair. The battles she chooses as a mother are so very different from the ones she used to face as Tony’s PA, but some of them are avoiding cleaning up messes just the same.

“It’s something we do every now and then,” Pepper amends, wiping Morgan’s sticky fingers with a napkin before taking away her empty plate. “Tony gets a lot of time with Morgan because he works exclusively from home, so I schedule time off to be with Morgan while Tony distracts himself with…well, whatever he wants, but Peter and Rhodey usually get the brunt of his boredom.”

“I did not mean to intrude,” Nebula looks down at her lap. Pepper would be hard-pressed to call the alien woman pitiful, but it is, a bit. Gamora was killed just when they were finally getting along, and Thanos was certainly no father of the year. Pepper hates that Nebula feels like an intruder in her home.

“I know that you lost your sister,” Pepper says. It’s hard to bring up, these losses that they couldn’t fix when they brought back the world. But Pepper is attempting to make a point and soften that blow. “But you know Tony and I consider you family. We’d love if you joined us for girls night.”

Morgan gasps, dramatically seven as ever. “Can she, Mommy? Nebula, can you? Please, please, please?”

“I still don’t understand exactly what this night entails, Morgan, but if you want me to accompany you, I will.”

“Yes!” Morgan cheers, sailing off upstairs to gather whatever she thinks they’ll need. Usually girls night involves too much sugar and the kinds things Pepper remembers doing with her own mother as a girl: sharing stories, telling secrets, and watching movies that were supposed to be over-feminine and cliche but they always ended up loving anyway.

(Though in Morgan’s younger years it was often just Pepper, a glass of wine, and cradling a sleeping Morgan to her chest while Tony took his turn to sleep without worrying about their crying baby.)

“I think you’ll have fun,” Pepper says, squeezing Nebula’s shoulder as she walks towards the couch, ready to prepare an epic blanket fort for three and whatever movie sounds interesting and age appropriate from FRIDAY’s library.

“I will try,” Nebula says.

Tony tries really hard to respect girls night. Once Pepper felt comfortable going back to work, he understood her want to have exclusive time with Morgan every now and then. Their baby girl is the most amazing little human in the whole world, and he’s lucky that Pepper is the CEO so that he doesn’t have to be. It just means that Pepper’s _always_ the CEO, even when their baby had colic and was screaming for the entire duration of a Stark Industries conference call. Girls night is when Pepper and Morgan get to be mother and daughter, to cultivate the bond that is exclusive to them alone, and Tony gets a break from full-time Dad Duty if he needs one.

Tonight, however, he needs to crash the party, just for a minute.

This girls night in particular, Tony decided to just hole up in his lab until he could sneak into bed. (There is no couch in his workshop anymore, because his back hated the couch at the compound, and he’s only just started listening to his body as he ages and has stopped actively beating the crap out of it.)

He called Peter, but post-graduation life for him meant weird hours Spider-Man-ing in-between shopping trips to prepare for college dorm life over the summer, so he was out and about on patrol. Rhodey was in D.C. for the week, and had hung up once Tony started complaining about the military for the umpteenth time. The other Avengers…well, he wasn’t that desperate, he’d rather make his own fun. No need to bother Natasha or Clint or—god forbid—Bucky and Sam, when they were all busy with other, more important things.

He’d been fine. He had a decent bottle of bourbon that he was nursing to taste the flavor instead of just slapping it back like the old days, and he was making repairs to the Iron Spider at Peter’s request. (Something about nano-tech not mixing with slimy substances. What the hell that stuff he cleaned off was, he’ll never ask.)

But it’s been about eight hours, and he needs food. He’d spent a long time ignoring things like the need for sleep and hunger. Having Morgan changed that. He had to stay on a decent schedule to keep Morgan on her schedule. She had to be fed and asleep at certain times or else she’d be cranky or whiny, and either way it broke Tony’s heart when she wasn’t happy.

Sometimes Pepper snuck a pizza or something of the like back to him on the occasion that he was around during girls night, but tonight they’d apparently been having so much fun they didn’t consider him. That’s fine—he’s a grown man who can take care of himself. However, it means he has to traverse into the No Dads Allowed Zone and get in and out of their hair. If they’re engrossed enough in something, he might not even get their attention.

When he pokes his head out of the workshop garage, he hears Pepper’s laughter, which makes him smile to himself. He loves her laugh. The business world never left much room for hearing it, but privately as he got to know her in the early years, he made it a bit of a personal mission to make her laugh at his jokes. (And she still _does_ laugh at most of his jokes all these years later, isn’t that something?)

“A dance battle? Seriously?” Pepper asks.

“Did Mister Quill dance like in _Mary Poppins_?” Morgan’s voice asks. When Tony finally enters the living area, he sees that’s the movie for which the credits are rolling on the TV screen. Morgan herself does a little jump reminiscent of the chimneysweeps number, only half clicking her heels together and ending up flopped into her cushion pile. “Like that?”

A snort. “Quill wishes he could dance that well.” Tony somehow didn’t realize Nebula was here. He’d been at the local hardware store earlier in the day trying to find something to dissolve the slime from Peter’s suit, and then went straight to his lab in the garage since it was girls night anyway.

Nebula’s hand is in Pepper’s. Apparently, Morgan has convinced them into using Pepper’s nail polish. (Tony’s got no opposition to letting his daughter paint his nails or her own with cheap Barbie paints—it’s the time Morgan slopped a $200 bottle of exclusive collectible red polish all over her bedroom carpet behind both of their backs that created the rule about asking to use Mommy’s instead.)

Pepper’s got a really complimenting shade of turquoise going onto Nebula, while her own fingers are half purple, and half red. Clearly Morgan’s doing, by the way some of the paint has clearly gotten onto the skin too.

“Tony didn’t know how to dance when we met. Not formally, anyway. At my first big event as his PA, I thought ‘Oh, he’s been to a million of these things, surely he knows what he’s doing.’ Except the only dancing he ever learned was in the party scene at MIT, and Obi—Stane _insisted_ that Tony needed to dance with this girl to seal a merger because her father was old-fashioned, or whatever.” Tony remembers that night, though he’d definitely been far from sober before they ever reached the whole dancing part of the evening. 

“So he’s—“ Pepper stops herself, muting the implied _plastered_ for their daughter’s ears. “You know. And I’m trying to teach him to do a simple waltz, except I’ve never been the one to lead. We’re whisper-screaming at each other for fifteen minutes and he’s ruining my white heels by stepping all over them—it’s a disaster, as far as I know.”

“Did you threaten Stark to make him cooperate? Did you dance with the woman instead?” Nebula asks.

“Ha!” Pepper laughs out, slapping her leg. “I wish. No, see, Tony’s—Tony. He can play piano, he can take machines apart with his dinner silverware. He’s adaptable and creative. But back then he had more…let’s say, swagger. He was charming. So he just asked this girl to dance, swayed with her in a circle while whispering in her ear, and he had her attention. No need for the lessons. After he realized he could get away with it, he never learned.”

“Not true!” Tony butts in, finally announcing his presence. “Our wedding dance was a work of art, Pep. I took lessons. I made Rhodey take those lessons with me for weeks.”

“He thought it was a surprise.” Pepper rolls her eyes. “I’m still the one that manages his calendar and he had FRIDAY put ‘Dance Lessons For Wedding’ in big capital letters.”

“It was…interesting. I don’t know how you learned to do such dancing, Stark.” Nebula truly does look perplexed, remembering back to their wedding years prior. It was pretty simple choreography, considering that Tony was getting older and his injuries made him a little less coordinated in the wrong positions. Still, he knows that Pepper was very impressed. She made him repeat the dance with her in their home multiple times, just to show it off.

“What, Nebs, you’re saying you don’t know how to dance? I swore I saw you and Rocket attempting the Cupid Shuffle towards the end of the reception!”

Nebula narrows her eyes at him, vaguely threatening. The closest she probably gets to bashful.

“Okay, okay, so what you’re saying is you can’t do something more formal.”

“Correct.”

“Neither can I!” Morgan says, crawling up the back of the couch. She sometimes gets antsy when she’s left without attention in a room of people, and Tony worries his half of her DNA is a contributing factor.

“Well that just won’t do!” he dramatizes, lifting Morgan in his arms and swinging her around in circles until he gets a little dizzy and she’s squealing with delight. “How’s that?”

“That’s not real dancing, Daddy!”

“Okay, okay,” he agrees. He looks to Pepper, and she stands with a shake of her head, knowing what he’s going to ask. “What do you say, Miss Potts? Wanna show ‘em how it’s done?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mister Stark. I think you’re just trying to distract us from girls night…” Despite her protest and partially correct observation of his motives, she takes his hand once Morgan is on the floor and steps into the hold.

“Something in 3/4 time, FRI,” Tony commands. A classical piece that Tony only vaguely knows plays from the speakers. They fall into the rhythm of the simple box-step waltz easily enough, back and forth while Nebula and Morgan watch with studying interest.

“Wow…” Morgan says, when Tony goes for a little spin and successfully returns Pepper to his arms without either of them ending up on the floor. Impressing Morgan has become his number one ego boost.

Nebula looks like their footwork has actually done her dirty. She’s staring at their feet, mumbling under her breath like she’s doing complex math calculations or something. 

“Y’think we gave her the blue screen of death?” Tony jokes. Pepper elbows him, understandably. Making fun of people isn’t usually the right way to get them to participate and come out of their shell.

“Come on, Nebula, we’ll teach you,” Pepper says instead. She takes Nebula’s freshly manicured and nail-painted hands and pulls her off of the couch with less resistance than Tony expected. “Who knows, maybe you’ll need it out there, some day. The waltz might be universal.”

“Perhaps as a form of torture,” Nebula states, completely deadpan, but possibly also joking. Tony can’t tell, but if that’s how she uses the skill of dance, he never wants to be on the receiving end.

Tony almost busts out a Youtube video of someone teaching the box step waltz instead, but then Morgan gets on Tony’s feet, making him almost tear up with how much of a Father-Daughter Moment it really is. He and Pepper spend the rest of what is supposed to be girls night teaching the girls how to dance and end the night with _Singin In The Rain_ so that they can spend half of it gushing over Debbie Reynolds’ footwork.

(When Tony hears from Quill a few weeks later that Nebula did indeed find a way to make the waltz violent by adding in a crotch-buster with her knee mid-dance as a surprise attack, he may or may not tear up a little in pride.)

xx

Something Tony no longer misses about being a regular at any bar that would entertain his presence without kicking him out is the noise. This place in particular is packed with tourists despite it being midday and a dreary sort of humid. Their rooftop table has an admittedly nice view, but it’s partially ruined by the other million bars on the Broadway strip with rooftop venues, blasting their own music or showcasing a barrage of live performers that range from decent to never-going-to-make-it-in-this-town. The famous Batman Building sits in the distance, clouded by the smog of city life and an impending downpour.

Dierks Bentley sings about being somewhere on a beach over the speaker. Tony considers snapping his whiskey glass in half.

Or perhaps, dangling Harley Keener over the rooftop. Now _there’s_ an idea.

The kid in question—not really a kid anymore, a few years older than Peter now—is leaned back easy in his own patio chair, the picture of comfortable in his environment. He’s wearing jeans and a light flannel shirt and cowboy boots. There are so many goddamn cowboy boots in this bar alone, and thousands being sold at shops a few streets down. Harley had convinced Pepper to get a pair, and Tony’s extremely worried with how comfortable she’s found them to be in contrast to some of her more stylish heels.

The thing is—he tries very hard not to be a generalizing kind of asshole. California isn’t all actors smoking weed just like New York isn’t all taxies and Times Square. Rose Hill was a nowhere town with the makings of every single other nowhere southern town he’d never heard of, but it wasn’t a representation of the state as a whole.

So far, though, Harley is doing a terrible job at showing them anything else on his personal tour of this city. 

With Tony’s generous gifts and opened doors for Harley to get into advanced placement schools, Harley’s mom moved them up towards Nashville back when Harley was almost finished with middle school. Harley seemingly thrived in the environment—no more bullies he couldn’t handle, more to do with his active mind and mechanically inclined hands. Maybe Tony didn’t always get to check in as much as he would have liked, but Harley left voicemails or sent e-mails, and it was good to know that Tony didn’t ruin the kid’s life just by breaking into his garage that one night.

Harley didn’t lose his family in the snap—fellow students not standing next to him at graduation, yes, but not his mother or sister. Tony, though, had lost Peter. They’d been up against Thanos and lost _everyone_. So, one day Harley started driving up to the lake house once he started MIT, and he just…never really stopped, even after everyone came back.

In kind, in this _after Thanos_, Tony and Pepper agreed to take this vacation to Nashville to visit him while he’s on break for school, and he’d promised them the grandest of tours.

So far, they’ve learned a lot more about Johnny Cash than Tony has ever wanted to know, Pepper has been humming some Dolly Parton song under her breath since it crawled into her ear at the first bar they visited, and he’s been targeted by the ecstatic screams of multiple bachelorette parties riding by on pedal carts, party buses, and even a couple of tractors.

Tony can appreciate a decent country song, but he went from vaguely amused and having a nice time to miffed the minute they entered this place, because now he’s realized that Keener is up to something. 

Specifically, Tony thinks of Harley as the hipster-coffee-drinking, trendy-city-living kid that Peter also often exhibits himself as in the streets of New York, and he’s not buying this place as one of Harley’s so-called “regular spots.”

Pepper stares at him glaring at Harley and raises an eyebrow. Harley doesn’t move a muscle.

“You’re screwing with me, aren’t you?” Tony finally asks.

“Oh, absolutely.” There’s a beat of silence, and then Harley laughs to himself while Tony growls. It’s only half-hearted, though, when Tony goes in for a noogie. Just spending time with Harley and Pepper in the midst of a million sweaty tourists has been entertaining at the least. “I was trying to see how deep into major tourist territory I could get you. I know this isn’t your scene, and it sure ain’t mine.” Harley pauses for a beat, listening to a song Tony’s never heard. “I take that back, _80’s Mercedes_ is a good choice.”

“These drinks are overpriced,” Pepper adds in, frowning at her colorful mixed drink. It’s a lot of syrup and not much liquor, from the sip he stole. “Actually, everything is kind of overpriced.”

“So was that restaurant you two brought me to on the Malibu coast!” Harley argues. Tourism is tourism no matter where it’s located, on that he’s right.

“Yeah, but then I got you those amazing tacos from the truck we always used to frequent with the—“ Tony makes a motion at Pepper, trying to remember.

“Ugh, the best queso!” Pepper agrees with a nod. “I used to crave it when I was pregnant with Morgan. I bribed them to ship us a bucket. It was awful.”

“It was _amazing_,” Tony corrects. “What we’re saying is—take us to the good places instead of being a little shit.”

“I know a place that does a Bloody Mary with bacon,” Harley offers.

“Getting better,” Tony encourages, already uncurling some cash from his wallet to cover their bill.

“And the barbecue at that place off of 12th is worth waiting for, I swear.”

“Then no more waiting, kid, and you’re paying for both.”

“You pay my consulting salary for Stark Industries.”

“Not the point.”

xx

“Thank you so much for coming in, Miss Potts, Mister Stark. I know you’re both incredibly busy.” Miss Shaw, Morgan’s first grade teacher, shakes Pepper’s hand, then Tony’s before they sit down across from her in the classroom. Morgan is currently being babysat by Happy specifically so that they could come to this meeting tonight.

It’s not a normal parent-teacher conference. It should be—just a check in that Morgan’s doing okay as always—but something apparently came up that required both of them to come in and have a chat.

“I’ll get to the point quickly,” the teacher adds, rummaging around in her desk before pulling out a piece of paper. “For art class, the students were told to draw pictures of their families. Morgan was very happy at the prospect, but when I collected her work, I became…concerned.”

There’s a beat of silence when the drawing is flipped over so they can see it. Tony takes it into his hands. He smiles, then passes it to Pepper.

“Well,” Tony points to the corner of the picture. “That’s the dog she’s been asking for since she was three. It certainly doesn’t exist. Well, maybe it's a bad rendering of our alpaca. Unless…Pepper, are we getting a puppy?!”

Pepper smacks her husband lightly on the arm, holding her grin in. They’re supposed to be taking this meeting seriously, but the picture in front of them being called an issue is hard not to laugh at.

The picture is at least identifiable as a family portrait. In the middle of the picture is a self-portrait of Morgan, holding the hands of her parents. Tony is wearing a t-shirt and jeans in the drawing while drawing-Pepper wears a suit and has a ponytail of orange and yellow scribbled together. On her right are drawn versions of Happy and Rhodey, the latter flying in the air in his War Machine armor. “She said these were her Uncles. I recognized them from the press, so I wasn’t alarmed at first.” But then Miss Shaw moves down with her finger, to drawing-Tony’s left.

“I understand having a creative imagination—your daughter wouldn’t be the first child to create imaginary friends or family. But there are so many faces than your own pictured here, and based on her explanations, I’m worried she might be a little…confused.” 

The way that she says _confused_ implies a little more like _seeing things_ or_ crazy_. Miss Shaw points to a blue squiggle, given a very nicely detailed metal arm. “This one, for example, she called…Nebula? She said she was an alien, and that she had a friend like Mary Poppins? I know that this world is different, now, and that you yourself have faced aliens, Mister Stark, but…”

Miss Shaw shakes her head and continues. There’s a figure holding picture-Tony’s hand covered in a familiar blue, red, and black striped suit. “She said that this was someone named Peter. I figured maybe they play Spider-Man together, or something? But she said he was her brother, and I know you don’t have any other children.“

Miss Shaw then points to a shaggy haired brunette scribble. “Then she said this Harley boy was related to her as well, and I just—I have to say, I’m so confused,” Miss Shaw finishes, throwing up her hands a little dramatically. 

Then again, it’s probably not that dramatic for a first grade teacher just trying to do her job to have to deal with a child calling superheroes her family. Pepper was normal once, but then Tony had to go and become Iron Man, and now she’s got the codename Rescue, according to FRIDAY, and her life is so damn _weird_ that it’s hard to even remember the years when she wasn’t hanging out with literal superheroes on a semi-weekly basis.

“I’m sorry to have caused you so much trouble, Miss Shaw,” Pepper replies, trying to channel the part of herself that has to deal with the press every day. “I know our family is unique. I don’t even know where to start—“

Tony takes care of that for her. “Nebula _is_ an alien. Well, I guess we’re aliens to her, too, though. Apparently they call us Terrans out there in that big ol’ galaxy of ours.” Tony pulls out his phone and pulls up a picture of Morgan in Nebula’s lap. They’re in the Starks’ yard, holding half-melted juice pops. It was taken at their last barbecue over the summer.

“Oh my god,” Miss Shaw says, putting her head in her hands. “Please don’t tell me the tabloid stories about Spider-Man being Mister Stark’s lovechild are true.”

“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Pepper amends. That’s the last thing they need out there. It’s too close to the rumor of _Peter himself_ being Tony’s lovechild that they had to squash the summer before the Snap occurred. They really don’t need anyone to start connecting those dots.

“Peter is—“ Tony tries to answer, but seems unsure exactly what to say. “I guess he’s kind of our kid, right? I tried to convince May that I should pay child support once, and I think one time he accidentally called me Dad—“

“He was Tony’s intern,” Pepper clarifies, stopping Tony’s terrible explanation that’s implying all the wrong things. “But he’s become very close to the family.”

“Oh, wait, Harley’s pretty normal!” Tony shouts, snapping his fingers as if he’s convinced that’s true. “I crashed into his garage when he was a kid and he saved me from dying—“

“No,” Pepper interrupts again. It’s a terrible summary of events, and that doesn’t explain that Harley became closer to them after Peter was gone, that he was around when Morgan was first born and babysat when being holed up alone with their child at the lakehouse for weeks in a row got to their sanity. “I can’t explain it any better, but no, he’s—close to Morgan. He’s like family too.”

“The dog is super fake though,” Tony says. “Pepper said no.”

“I said _maybe_,” Pepper corrects, even though it doesn’t matter to Miss Shaw. But Tony has always known how to get her off task. “When she’s older.”

“Seven is older than five, and five is older than three, Pepper, so what’s the truth? That you hate dogs and also our child’s joy?”

“Tony—“

Miss Shaw coughs pointedly. Pepper tries not to be embarrassed, while Tony is anything but chastised for going off the rails in the middle of what is already an awkward and odd conversation. “I’ll make sure to, ah, keep that in mind, in the future. I’ll reflect a passing grade onto Morgan’s work.”

“Thank you so much, Miss Shaw,” Pepper says, standing and shaking the teacher’s hand. Morgan’s Christmas gift for her teacher this year is going to be massive in return for having to deal with everything that comes with the Starks and the rest of the Avengers’ presences in their lives, she’s sure.

**Author's Note:**

> I STILL haven’t seen FFH yet, so Peter’s part is probably wholly inaccurate to whatever’s going on in canon post-Endgame, and I don’t care, because this is a fix-it anyway. :)
> 
> The thing about Tony’s dancing is 100% made up. It was just a story I liked the idea of Pepper telling to lead into Pepper and Tony teaching Nebula and Morgan to dance. (Though he and Pepper are just kinda swaying during their benefit dance, so it could be true, I guess.)
> 
> I love Nashville as a city, and truly, it’s way more than just country music. But I do actually like some country music and some of the tourist-y stuff is a lot of fun, so don’t knock it until you visit. Tony’s just being Old and Tired and Harley is pulling his leg.
> 
> Morgan’s picture was the foundation of this whole fic. I loved the idea of Pepper and Tony and their kids, and that Morgan sees all of these people as her family too. (Also, let Tony and Morgan get a dog, Pepper, geez, I’ve accidentally written it into like 3 of these prompts.)
> 
> Thanks so much for reading. If you've read any of my other fics this week, know I love it tremendously (even if I haven't replied to any comments bc I'm terrible about it). All kudos, comments, etc. are always appreciated! See you guys for the last prompt! It's a good one. ;)


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